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Beastly MultiCraft Beginners Guide

The path to being a great server admin is not an easy one, nor is it a quick one. It takes weeks and months of dedication, research, and plain-ole trial and error to become experienced in managing a server. This guide will detail the basics of what will enable you to become a proficient server owner.

BRAND NEW SERVER - WHAT NOW?You've just purchased a server, what now? The first thing is to familiarize yourself with the BeastNode Multicraft game panel and learn how to utilize its features as best as you can. There is a file manager (web FTP), which aids in uploading files and extracting .zip and .tar.gz files, but FTP is generally recommended as it is easier and quicker to use (also more reliable since it is a direct connection to your game server). You will also find the console which shows all of the events/messages going on in your server. All errors will show up here. The console is literally the last couple thousand lines of messages from your server.log, so if you need to check older messages that don't show up in the console, you'll find them in the server.log file on your server. The server.log file can get large over time, so you will want to delete it (with the server off) once in a while. Note that your server.log file should NEVER be more than a few hundred megabytes after a week or so as that usually points to errors being spammed on your server.

CONFIGURATION - USER GAME MANAGEMENTThe server.properties file is the configuration file for the Minecraft/CraftBukkit server itself. It controls the server settings such as monster spawning, allow nether (disabled by default), whitelisting, etc. You can read more about the settings here: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Server.properties

You can edit this file directly via FTP or by going to the Files > Config Files > Server Settings page from the control panel.

On the server management page, you will find your start/stop/restart buttons to control your server.

You will also find the JAR File drop down list here where you can select any of our pre-uploaded builds of vanilla Minecraft, CraftBukkit, and Tekkit.

You will also find the "World" setting here which is where you would set your main world. This setting correlates to the level-name setting in the server.properties file and should be set here, instead of the properties file itself.

The "Players" setting is also found here, which is how you change your player slot limit.

FTP File AccessThe web FTP features allows you to edit, delete, and upload files from the control panel in your web browser. You can also choose to upload AND extract zip/tar.gz files at the same time when on the upload page as well (there are two upload options on the upload page for this). To access this feature, go to the Files > FTP File Access page from the game panel and login through there.

FTP ACCESSWe allow for direct FTP access to your server files. This will make it much easier to manage your files. All of the information is listed in the Files > FTP File Access page in the game panel.

CraftBukkitIn order to set your server to be a "CraftBukkit" type of server, you must change it via the control panel. Vanilla Minecraft is installed by default, which does not support plugins. To change your server to CraftBukkit, please refer to this guide: https://www.beastnode.com/portal/knowledgebase/73/Changing-between-Vanilla-or-CraftBukkit-or-Other-Mods.htmlPer that guide, all you really need to do is to select the version of CraftBukkit you want (making sure to keep in mind that there are different builds of CraftBukkit for each version of Minecraft), click save, then restart your server.

PLUGINSAs with just about any CraftBukkit based server, plugins are supported and are installed the same way. All plugins come in a .jar file and simply need to be uploaded to your "plugins" folder for it to be loaded up (after you restart the server). Certain plugins require additional installation steps, so please make sure to read all instructions for the particular plugin you are installing. Here is additional information on plugins: https://www.beastnode.com/portal/knowledgebase/14/Installing-Plugins.html

BACKUPSBackups are your responsibility and is just about the most important thing you can do on your server. You can backup your main world (the one entered in the "World" setting in the control panel) via the Files > Backup feature in Multicraft. Note that this does not backup any other files, but your main world.

HACKERSHackers are becoming very common with Minecraft now and thus, one should be careful. Backups are extremely important for this very reason as hackers can completely destroy your world in minutes. There are also hacks where it allows users to have full op access to your server, so this is something to keep an eye out for as most hacks cannot simply be stopped due to the rate of which new ones are being developed.

CRASHES / LAG / GLITCHESSince Minecraft is heavily dependent on plugins and most servers use CraftBukkit, there are bound to be bugs that can cause your server to crash, lag, or end up with glitches. Even vanilla Minecraft (Minecraft servers that come "as-is" from Mojang without plugin support) have their own bugs, which all add up if you use CraftBukkit and plugins. When having any issues, please go through our troubleshooting guide before submitting a ticket: https://www.beastnode.com/portal/knowledgebase/66/BeastNode-Minecraft-Server-Troubleshooting-Guide.html